Press release
NPR’s Robert Siegel Receives the 2010 John Chancellor Award
Siegel will be honored at Columbia University on Nov. 16
NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2010—Robert Siegel, senior host of NPR’s All Things Considered, is the recipient of the 2010 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism announced today. Siegel, who graduated from Columbia College in 1968, was selected in recognition of his extraordinary career at NPR where he has engaged millions of listeners with journalistic rigor and professionalism for more than 30 years.
The John Chancellor Award is presented each year to a reporter for his or her cumulative accomplishments. The prize honors the legacy of pioneering television correspondent and longtime NBC News anchor John Chancellor. A nine-member committee selected Siegel for the award, which bestows a $25,000 prize. The award will be presented to Siegel at a dinner at Columbia University’s Low Library in New York on November 16, 2010.
“Robert Siegel brings intellectual heft and a profound humanity to his reporting,” said Nicholas Lemann, dean of the journalism school and chair of the award’s selection committee. “His work embodies the spirit of the John Chancellor Award. We look forward to honoring Siegel’s many accomplishments back where his career began, on the Columbia campus.”
About the 2010 Chancellor Awardee
Siegel has hosted All Things Considered for 23 years, helping grow the program into a leading primary news source. His work ranges from daily news coverage to foreign reporting to investigative work highlighting the failings of the justice and social welfare systems.
Siegel joined NPR in 1976 as an associate producer, was appointed public affairs editor in 1977 and senior editor in 1978. Siegel was chosen to be NPR’s first foreign correspondent in 1979 and opened its London bureau. Before joining All Things Considered in 1987, Siegel served four years as director of NPR’s News and Information Department, overseeing production of NPR’s newsmagazines All Things Considered and Morning Edition, as well as special events and other news programming. During his tenure, NPR launched its popular Saturday and Sunday newsmagazine Weekend Edition.
Siegel’s 1996 two-part documentary “Murder, Punishment, and Parole in Alabama” revealed a criminal justice system beset by the financial difficulties of keeping violent offenders in long-term incarceration. The series earned the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award in 1997. In another remarkable series, over the course of eight years Siegel profiled a 15 year-old named Jeremy Armstrong who was convicted of murdering a drug dealer and sentenced as an adult to serve time in a maximum security prison.
Siegel has been honored with three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism; in 2009 he and All Things Considered co-host Melissa Block were awarded for their coverage of the Chengdu Earthquake in China; in 1996 he was part of the winning team for “The Changing of the Guard: The Republican Revolution,” for coverage of the first 100 days of the 104th Congress; and his reporting on the peace movements in East and West Germany earned a 1984 duPont Award. A graduate of New York’s Stuyvesant High School Siegel began his career in radio as an undergraduate at Columbia University, where he worked at the college radio station WKCR-FM, covering the 1968 protests on campus.
“Over the course of his more than 30-year career, Robert Siegel has become almost synonymous with NPR. His style of reporting and interviewing has shaped the very sound of our air,” said Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of NPR. “In its depth, breadth and variety, Robert’s work is the essence of quality journalism.”
The John Chancellor Award was established in 1995 by Ira A. Lipman, founder and chairman of Guardsmark, LLC, one of the world’s largest security service firms. In addition to Lipman and Dean Lemann, the selection panel includes journalists Tom Brokaw, Ellis Cose, John L. Dotson Jr., Hank Klibanoff, Michele Norris, and Lynn Sherr, as well as John Chancellor’s daughter Mary Chancellor. To learn more about the John Chancellor Award and this year’s awardee, Robert Siegel, please visit the John Chancellor Award website at http://www.journalism.columbia.edu.
